


Layers

by JoAsakura



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan muses on what makes Shepard... Shepard.</p><p>(and.. woah, apparently this is my 100th fic posted at A03? huh!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Layers

Kaidan is sleepy, sated and vaguely sticky. Nose full of the fleeting ozone and musk that is so uniquely Shepard's scent, the solid weight of the man himself pillowed against Kaidan's arm.

It would be easy to fall asleep. He's already halfway there, after all. But he doesn't want to lose this moment, not when the go-call for a mission might be in an hour or five minutes. Not with the Reapers breathing down their collective necks, and a billion miles away, the earth waiting for them to bring the cavalry.

Shepard is warm and solid and his eyelashes tickle Kaidan's arm as they twitch, and the major whispers nonsense in the messy thatch of Shepard's hair to hopefully drive away the bad dreams.

When he's sleepy, the metaphors get mixed up in his head. And Kaidan thinks about how vulnerable the commander is, right in this moment, pressed so close to him they might share a skin. So many layers of the great Shepard onion to peel away to get to this pearl of a moment, and he knows that makes no sense as soon as it surfaces in his brain, muffling a tired laugh against the other man's temple.

Layers of polymers and ceramics, microframes and medigel tubing, tech shielding and biotic barriers, and of course, sheer, unadulterated attitude (Even with their amps powered down, the faint static discharge of their powers tingles under Kaidan's fingertips as he traces a scar on Shepard's shoulder).

More layers. Nanolattice skin weave beneath his regrown dermis (fine hair on pale skin, glinting in the dull orange light, Kaidan can barely see the scars with his eyes, even though his lips know every one of them by heart now), biosynthetic muscles moving reinforced bones (Shepard is heavier now - all of those cybernetics are not exactly lightweight - and the man sprawls like a greedy cat against Kaidan, making the big bed seem that much more... intimate), neural implants and amps singing in his nerves and weird prothean data written into the very strands of his DNA. Even the steady thump of his heart (pulse gently twitching under Kaidan's searching fingers), rebuilt from the ground up, pushing re-engineered blood through his veins.

It should amount to a giant mess. But it doesn't.

All of it is Shepard, but none of it is, and the commander shifts against him, not quite awake, but not fully asleep (Trying to close the miniscule gaps between them). And Kaidan breathes in his scent again, another layer. Ozone and musk - biotic energy on his skin like the smell of a storm and wet earth. That scent nearly killed him on Horizon, nearly broke him of the armour of grief and anger built hard over those two horrible years. Two years of feeling like he'd lost a part of himself he'd never known he'd had. That scent clung to him in the hospital, the ghost of Shepard watching over him while he healed.

He's lost in trying to figure out how far he needs to go to find whatever it is that makes Shepard... himself.. when Shepard's hand slides up his chest, thumb gently raking his jawline. "Credit for your thoughts, Major?" He yawns, blinking awake, eyes clear and bright and far too old sometimes for his face.

"Just thinking..." Kaidan shifts them, until he's the one sprawling on top, Shepard's fingers teasing along his hips as they resettle. "About how I could have about a million years and still not figure you all out."

"You make me sound like a salarian puzzle box." Shepard laughs (always a little hesitant, that sound, as if he's not sure if he still knows how, but is determined to try anyways) "I'm not that complicated, Kaidan."

Kaidan kisses him hard, mapping the taste and the soft sounds and shakes his head when they finally break for air. "You have no idea, Shep. No. Idea."


End file.
